American blogger Paul Padillo has reconsidered his first reaction to The Full Monteverdi; now past his initial misgivings about the mixing of old and new, he now finds it an “oddly beautiful… gem of a movie”. Read his complete posting here.

The Full Monteverdi draws more acclaim in South Africa. Paul Boekkooi of Independent News and Media hails the film as “frontier-shifting musical drama”, “a brilliant idea: to show through contemporary everyday 21st-century environments and the latest film techniques, but without any CGI intervention, how Monteverdi’s texts… can spell out every emotional conflict lovers still feel today” that is “diligently thought through and well-crafted to the hilt.”

The Full Monteverdi‘s opening weekend at cinemas in South Africa has been well received. According to The Sunday Times there, “it’s daring, original and, for classic music buffs, it is a unique treat”, while Artsmart describes the film as an “audacious cinematic experiment by John La Bouchardiere so skilfully devised and presented that by the end it is impossible not to be drawn in to the dramatic interactions”.